RSN Steps™ – Scam Victim Free Self-Help Recovery Program

Higher Power

While we don’t include belief in higher powers or religion in our program, your faith can be the most powerful element in your recovery. We strongly suggest that you seek your priest, rabbi, or other spiritual leaders to help you in regaining your equilibrium, as this will help you follow the RSN Steps and have a more successful recovery. We also recommend Yoga for those that can.

Step 2

Make a real searching and penetrating moral inventory of yourself

During this step, you make a list of poor decisions or character flaws that brought you to this place.

This is where you begin to understand the causes of how you so easily became a victim of fraud. You will be examining your emotional problems in order to prepare yourself for a life without future scams. In the process, you may discover why you were alone to begin with, and maybe this understanding will allow you to find a life-partner after all.

You should also outline not just the hurt you caused yourself, but also hurt you caused to others. You probably alienated your family or friends when they tried to help you.

Also list your feelings, like fear and guilt, that motivated some of what led you here. Once you have acknowledged these items, they are less likely to serve as triggers to future online or scam abuse. You can use them to examine the future decisions that you make.

This is not easy and is not done in a day. Keep your list handy so as insights emerge, you can write them down. Health professionals are trained to help you explore these, and you would be wise to seek one out.

What Do You Need To Do?

Be honest about your moral or personality defects. They can give you tremendous insight into why you fell for the scam in the first place.

You absolutely have to accept that the problem is within you, the scammer was just taking advantage of a problem that already existed inside you. They are a bug, but you let them in.

You were scammed, and certainly, the scammer was a criminal, but you no longer get to blame anyone. You and you alone are responsible for your behavior. You really must accept this to move on.

So don’t hold back. You don’t have to share this with anyone else, but you must do it for yourself. You won’t benefit if you don’t own up to your shortcomings.

Trust yourself and remember: You are more than your mistakes. You are still a good person and have people that care about you.

Be thorough and write down your inventory. This will be the first real proof of your process of recovery.

Remember, this is not meant to destroy your belief in yourself. It is meant to help you understand any false beliefs that you held, and so you can focus on your real strengths.

Take It ONE STEP At A Time!

You cannot be impatient. That is what got you scammed to begin with. There are no shortcuts!

RomanceScamsNow.com™ is the official News Magazine of the Society of Citizens Against Romance Scams™ [SCARS]™
It is edited and published by the RSN Team, a division of SCARS.
SCARS is the world's leading anti-scam organization, based in Miami Florida & Cincinnati Ohio U.S.A. Its founder has been involved in combating online fraud since 1991. SCARS™ - the Society of Citizens Against Romance Scams is a non-profit non-governmental organization (NGO) dedicated to advocating victim's causes and changing government and law enforcement attitudes toward online fraud for good! Please join us in becoming a member of SCARS - it's free! Add your voice so that the world will listen at last - just go to www.AgainstRomanceScams.org. The RSN website and all of our publications (including social media) are maintained by our own staff employees and volunteers to provide you the most up to date information about scams & scammers from around the world. We show you how to avoid them or recover from them. SCARS is the only registered online crime victims' assistance & support organization in the world. Be sure to report scammers here. Also, visit our main Facebook page for more information about romance scams.

Share This Information - Choose Your Social Media!

Related Posts

25 Comments

im sharon.i was scammed when i joined a dating site,I lost my entire saving my home my car the respect of my family an friends I shut myself away for two years now I’d like to help others I lost over 850,000 to one man I thought loved me and swore to God hed never hurt me. But he almost destroyed me It hurt my family because they almost lost me only God knows why iv made it threw these past two years but I made it and you can too

I’M BEING SCAMMED BY A MAN NAMES HUNTER PHYLLIS SAY’S HE WORKS IN SYRIA ON A 30 MILLION DOLLAR PROJECT. HE SAYS HE LOVE’S ME . HUNTER SENT A PHONY WORK DOCUMENT OF THIS HI-PAID PROJECT AND I WOULD RECEIVE 6% OF THIS, HE WANTS TO MARRY ME. (YEAH AND THE MOON IS ROYAL BLUE TOO), WHO WORKS WITH BERNARD BONSRA AND ERICK NYARKO, MY MONEY, IN CREDIT CARD’S WERE TAMPERED WITH THESE MEN PROFESSIONALLY TOOK $25.000 FROM MY CREDIT CARDS. MONEY WAS SENT TO ACCURA,GHANA AND ALSO TO GHANA MART. $490 IN FOOD, THEY USED MY CREDIT CARDS TO BUY APPLE PHONES,WORTH $5000 ( THESE MEN COULD BE TERROIST’S TO MAKE BOMBS WITH THESE PHONES), THAT WAS SENT TO BERNARD BONSRA AT THE ABOVE CITY & COUNTRY OF GHANA. I HAVE E-MAIL’S OF HUNTER AND PHONE NUMBERS OF THESE MEN AND PHONE NUMBER 800 OF GHANA MART…..i was truly robbed not that I give them money but, they tapped into my credit cards. Be carefull people.. What I do now is I called my credit card Companies, put a freeze on them, and undo the freeze when I want to use my cards, then freeze them again when I’m through shopping.

I’m being skyped daily by a sexy white girl claiming to be in Ghana. She keeps asking for foodstuffs through Ghanamart.com , I email with her, skype with her, have seen a woman claiming to be her Mother. Her microphone does not work and her cam freezes often, however when she wants me to see her in her skimpy lingerie I can. HOW CAN I FIND OUT IF SHES A SCAM???
It’s all just to much to believe for me… She also sent me a copy of her expired US Passport claiming she needs to renew it to come back to the US….???? Please contact me with info for my own understanding. I also have 3 phone numbers for her. I HAVE NOT YET SENT MONEY or anything to her…. It sounds way to good to be true. But I can see her on skype and it looks like she is in a very nice home or apartment probably here in the US.. LOL HELP me to understand this and whether it’s BS or could it be REAL???? Her name is Jessy Samadu… That’s on her US Passport expired in 2015.

Is there a way to find out who she really is from the Passport photo she sent me? It appears as though she is skyping with me from the US as the inside of her house is very modern and furnished extravagantly by Ghana standards. How can she skype with me live and take showers and dance if shes fake? From my knowledge there are NO WHITE GIRLS in Ghana?? How are they doing this? Can I trace her somehow?

it is the Ghana Boys scam. These creeps are everywhere..If she is from Ghana forget it and move on..been there done that..She will also need airfare they are all the same scammers..Real scum of the earth..They need a bullet hole in their head.. That is the only way to stop them..It is such a massive fraud network the government can’t handle even a small per-centage of it..Again, she is from Ghana, move on and forget it..Using a stolen photo they pretend to be the woman and are very good at it..or use a video girlfriend.. Any time there equipment doesn’t work right..it is a warning..when they want to relocate, that is a warning..(airfare and passport renewal) (luggage)..they need food..sick child with a picture of the kid, not theirs or stolen. doctor bill, cell phone minutes, fix their phone, fix their computer or IPad..Mom and Dad need medicine..
all dating sites have scammers..some dating sites are scammers, fake photos and a couple of guys answering all the messaging not one real person..all fake. Profile bullshit, and they get your credit card number..You’re safer with a prostitute off the street and will save money in the long run.. EDW

Is there anyway to start alerting the people whose photos have been stolen….they are victims, too. In some cases, it seems like the pictures were collected for a period of the persons lifetime…say from teenage years on up to the forties. How horrible!

My first scammer on the dating site Match…sent me pics of two seperate men….claiming to be the same guy. Unbelievable…and got really angry when I wrote—you look so different in these pictures…your eye and hair color and height appearl totally different. They are careless as well…scrutinize all pics even backgrounds.

The man I met we talked on phone for hours he had all excuses for needing money I sent cashier’s checks to different company’s in states tho he say he was in Malaysia in ten minutes he would give me account numbers I did this dozens of times I moneygramed lot of money to men named rahem ali ,Patrick carrick, miles edwards,even name he used John slates to Malaysia iv never known how he could get money sent to real company’s names here in states are money grams I found out his photos were not him but of a pen state announcer dean davore also he was a weatherman everything about him was lies but he still calls me ask for more money i don’t answer him back text all the time too there comes a time when you’ve gave everything that you see you ment nothing to him for your own sake for get these people block them never talk to them again ,find someone real to love

Sharon ruisinger – In your case it is not as simple as just ignoring the scammer. You acted as a MULE for him. You engaged in fraud by mail, banking fraud, and could be facing jail time. Your best option is to talk to your local police immediately and file a complaint against the scammer, and identify everyone you had contact with, If you say nothing they can come after you believing you are a co-conspirator and accomplice. This is very serious.

I meet this girl in Facebook where we developed feelings if romance where she lives in Germany where she wanted me to pay for her and her daughter to live with me in them United States so I made reservations through Amircian Airlines but just when we were getting close to have here flight to leave she said she wanted to first get her inherantance from her late father who was murdered in Midrid, Spain last year. So , Melina Axel Adrain goes to Bahrain to claim the her father’s inherantance where now I am into $60,000.00 thousand dollars into this scam and now she said to get all of the necessary papers to release these funds I need to send a additional $69,000.00 to release these funds from Bahrain. I have copies of all documentation and her picture passport of Her Germain passport. What is my legal recorse here?

The old inherantance scam is one of the most horrible..they are get there money and need to send it to you..(gold silver bars or bullshit)..fake attorney, fake documents, a real scam never fall for that again will you? Nothing you can do, except cry contact the FBI or track them down yourself and put them under the ground..The government can’t touch them until they find them and they are gone..She never existed, her daughter never existed, and until they took money from you..what they were doing was legal..creating fake people that dont exist isn’t against the law..pretending to be them isn’t either..you cant prove they dont exist until you catch them, then they tell the police that there isn’t anyone living there with her name..fake

Is there a class action lawsuit going on Facebook about the Scammers at this moment ?? If so how do I find it to sign my name on it ? I lost my life savings to a Scammer off of Facebook and I have tried to get him throwed off more than once.. He still has 7 are 8 profiles on Facebook under the name he used during our suppose to be relationship.

NOT YET – THERE ARE SEVERAL LAW FIRMS CONSIDERING ACTIONS OF THIS TYPE – BUT GOING AGAINST FACEBOOK IS ALMOST THE SCARIEST THING ON THE PLANET – EVEN NORTH KOREA WOULD BE EASIER. NOT MANY LAWFIRMS ARE WILLING TO INVEST $50,0000,000 INTO SUCH A LAW SUIT!

My experience of online dating scams led to my inspiration to write a book to give me (the victim) a happy ending if only in a fictional context! It is dedicated to women everywhere and the need for us to be there for each other and it is getting very good reviews as detailed below.

Well I finished Exactly 23 days and I Absofuckinglutelylovedit! Not my usual sort of read but it had me gripped. The ending OMG! Seriously, I read it every spare minute I had. I couldn’t put it down. Bit bloody clever you are! When’s the next one out Jayne because I really loved it. Seriously. Brilliant. It put a smile on my face and a lump in my throat, on several occasions. Well done you. Get back to that desk of yours and pen a new one. NOW. (male 40’s Oct 2016)

I was wondering if this person is for real details are: Ryan Rangers/ E7 Sergeant First Class at Army
Has never requested anything but did say that he could not go leave from deployment unless someone
like a wife, fiancée , signed for him. I then read on a site about some military protocol. Me thinks
it is just a little lie, what do you think? Why are we so naïve.

Don’t need the comment, I researched myself. Romance scammer. WE need to educate ourselves about who we are friends with on FB, as well as any other dating sites. Above all stay vigilant.
God Bless Julie. L.

Thats exactly what they afterward requested from me too. Yet later on trying to even rip more munah.

No! I tell you what to do here. You set an example in revenge that beats all the actions what they served to the victims before and share it right to their family clan audience on social media. The more doing it, the faster it will stop.

Anger makes you stupid. You were already dumb enough to be scammed in the first place, making one bad decision after another is not a great way to go. And how would you get revenge on someone that lives half a world away? You can deal with your situation or not, that is a choice.

It takes no courage to rant, hiding behind Google is easy. It takes courage to face yourself and move on!

I agree with this. How can you even try to have revenge on someone that is not there. It is a fake profile you would be taking revenge on. A better way would be to set the scammer aside, and deal with your own problem, whatever it is that has made you vulnerable in the first place? This does not have to be something where you bash yourself. It can be something that starts the healing process for you. Maybe start a daily journal and record your feelings and your dreams. You will be surprised to find that you might have the answer there already..

HI Tim, and the team. This is certainly a really STRONG program. Quite scary, at times, but I am sure that it will help to start a recovery for a person who is lost in the thrones of understanding the scam he/she is involved in. I have written a book called ‘Love on the Line’ and through that experience of writing out my story, learning to understand the relationships between the world we live in and the scamming phenomena and believing in that we now can re-create our own ‘happy ending’ with no blame or self-beating involved, we can start the long recovery process. I think that it is a lot about forgiving yourself also. Thank you for the program. I will share it around, Warmly Elina Juusola